


If We Find a Single Diamond in the Rough

by onceandfuturekiki



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Scene, F/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-27
Updated: 2016-03-27
Packaged: 2018-05-29 11:40:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6373285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onceandfuturekiki/pseuds/onceandfuturekiki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The morning after Vax walks out of Keyleth’s room, he gets some advice from a surprising source. A VERY rough version of this was posted to Tumblr, but this is the much more polished and complete version.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If We Find a Single Diamond in the Rough

If anyone asked why he’d had such a hard time sleeping the night prior, he would tell them it was because he’d been trying to sleep against his briefly-dead sister’s door, and doors are not the most comfortable places for sleeping.

In truth, though, if Vax needed to, he could easily sleep against a door. Or right on the floor, for that matter. He’d slept in far less comfortable places. Doorways in alleys, the forest ground. Hell, he’d slept in  _beds_  that were less comfortable than the doors in Whitestone Castle. No, the door itself was not the problem.

The real problem, he believed, was slightly embarrassing. He felt somewhat ridiculous that one night had had such an enormous impact on him.

But that seemed to be the way it was with Keyleth. The smallest things she did had the most enormous, life changing impact on him.

And now he found himself unable to sleep, because he had spent one night with her in his arms, and now that was something he  _needed_.

He needed  _her_. That was why he had gone to her room. It wasn’t that he wanted any specific thing – he hadn’t gone to her for a restoration spell, or an answer to his questions. He had just been hoping that she’d let him hold her, that maybe she had needed him, too, and that they could, for another night, hold each other and let that be the only world that existed.

Vax’s mind was at war. A part of him was angry with Keyleth, for what she said, for telling him she didn’t think she could let herself love him. After everything that had happened, why had she said that? Why hadn’t she realized that he just needed her and left that for another time? He’d already dealt with enough heartache and emotional upheaval in the past day or so. Why did she have to put more on the pile?

But there was another, more familiar voice in his head, and that part was far angrier at himself. It had been cruel to walk out the way he did, leaving her there crying, when she’d been trying to share something important with him. Walking out on her like that would hardly help his case.

Why did he always do that? Why did he always walk away when things got too emotional? Vax cursed himself. He’d been doing a good job at being different with Keyleth, with being honest and not getting too scared and running away like he did with everything else. Of course, he had to go and fuck that up, too. It was only a matter of time.

Angry with himself, Vax slammed his fist into the floor next to his hip. He couldn’t be mad at Keyleth, even if he felt he had reason to be. She had just been honest, the same as he had tried to be with her. He’d been waiting for an answer, hadn’t he? At the Sun Tree he’d said he’d understand if she didn’t want him, but when the time came, he’d stormed off like a child.

That was the thing, though. She  _loved_  him. She was just scared. And with good reason. Fuck, of course she was scared.

How could he possibly do that to her? How could he ask her to be with him knowing what it would lead to? The last thing he ever wanted was to cause her pain. The mere idea of hurting her made him nauseous. So how could he ask her to put herself in that situation?

And there was another reason to hate himself: he was so selfish that even after everything she told him, he still wanted to.

Repositioning himself against the door, Vax closed his eyes and tried to sleep again. At the very least, if he was sleeping he wouldn’t be thinking of how things had gone so very much to shit so quickly.

He tried to make his mind go blank. He tried to even out his breathing.

He even tried counting fucking sheep.

It was amazing how much one night had ruined him. Keyleth was like a phantom limb now. All he could feel, lying there, propped up against the door, trying to sleep, was her absence.

He knew now what it felt like to have her in his arms. That was something nobody else had shared with her. She had told him after they’d woken up, in a sleepy, unguarded voice, “I’ve never shared a bed with someone before. I was worried I’d kick you or something.”

Her just-woke-up voice, quiet and a bit breathy, was something that was now seared into his memory. The feeling of her hair, the soft waves between his fingers, the way her cheek felt against his shoulder, the smooth, porcelain skin pressing into his rougher skin, warming it, the touch of her hand, even smoother than her cheek, resting against his chest, tapping out the rhythm of his heartbeat absentmindedly. He knew what her pale shoulder looked like when it peeked out from under the covers, how it felt to sweep his hand over it as she shivered from the morning cold, and the sensation of her breath against his skin when she nuzzled into the crook of his neck, her lips brushing against his pulse. The feeling of  _her_ , tangled together with him beneath the covers, their arms around each other and their legs entwined, the way it made his heart frantic and calm at the same time, was something that would never leave him now. Every night he spent without her would be filled with an enormous, gaping  _absence_.

That was all he’d wanted when he’d gone to her earlier in the night. To just be able to sink into the feeling of  _her_.

But now all he had was the phantom memory of her voice, and her touch, that left him with an ache and a yearning he worried he’d never be rid of.

* * *

 

Vax had only been dozing when he fell through the door as Vex opened it. He hadn’t managed more than ten or so minutes of sleep at a time throughout the entire night, always jerking awake just as he would start to drift off. If it wasn’t the aching absence with which he’d been struggling all night, it was the image of his sister’s lifeless body flashing to the forefront of his mind, keeping him from getting any rest at all.

Had he been more rested, he wouldn’t have been so obvious about the way he locked eyes with Keyleth as she passed them in the hall, and the way his eyes trailed after her as she walked away from them.

“What the fuck was that?” Vex asked when Keyleth was out of ear shot.

Sleep-deprived and still emotionally disoriented from the night before, Vax didn’t even have it in him to lie or deflect. Instead, he kept his mouth shut and his eyes on the armor his sister had given him, pretending that she hadn’t even spoken.

“Okay, that’s it,” she said, pushing at his arm. “Get into the room.”

He didn’t have the strength to fight her off, so he stumbled gracelessly into the room as she shoved at him, the door slamming behind her.

“Seriously, Vax, what the fuck was that?”

“It was just… what it always is,” he responded in a defeated tone.

“Considering the fact that you refuse to talk to me about it, I don’t know  _what_  it always is,” Vex spat back. “What little I know I’ve gathered from your moony eyes and your blood-loss driven declaration of love. You telling me you were interested in her the other day is the first thing you’ve said about it to me.”

“It’s private,” he said, desperately wanting to end the conversation.

“You and I don’t do ‘private’”.

Vax met his sister’s statement with silence.  _She_  didn’t do private. But him? It wasn’t like there was a long list of secrets he’d kept, but there were a few things he’d held back, like the incident with the Clasp. Things he was scared to tell her. Things he didn’t know  _how_ to tell her.

The thing with Keyleth, though…

“I knew you wouldn’t like it. And you don’t.”

“Vax-“

“I knew it would upset you, and it has, but I was already so in love with her by the time I even realized it, and I knew it wasn’t something I could just  _stop_ , no matter how much you didn’t like it.”

Vex’s eyes widened in shock as her brother told her more about his feelings for Keyleth than he ever had before. “I wouldn’t have told you to stop…” she trailed off, sounding unsure about her statement.

“But it would have made you unhappy, so I would have wanted to,” he explained, his voice quiet.  “But there’s no way I could. Believe me, right now I wish I could.”

Sinking down onto the bed, he dropped his face into his hands, confused and embarrassed. The sound of Vex moving reached his ears, and the feeling of her hand on his shoulder, usually so comforting, made his whole body tense, unsure of her intentions.

“I know this has been difficult,” she started, hesitation evident in her voice. “For both you  _and_  Keyleth. But especially you. I’ve watched you, as you waited for her. And I won’t pretend like I didn’t get angry at her for taking her sweet fucking time. I’m protective of your heart. I was also… scared. To let anyone in. It’s always just been you and me. You wanting to add someone else to that… it was a thought I had to get used to.”

Vax nodded, his muscles losing some of their tension.

“But now…” she started, her fingers tightening around his shoulder. “I want you to talk to me about this.”

“Vex-“

“Did it ever occur to you that I might be able to help?”

His head shot up at her unexpected words. “What?”

“Well, I am a woman. I might have some insight into Keyleth that you don’t.”

His mouth opened and closed, looking for a response, long enough for his sister to comment, “Stop that. You look like a fish.”

“I’m sorry, I just… you want to help?”

“I want you to be happy,” she said. “And I want Keyleth to be happy. I’m pretty sure that means you two being together. However gross that might be.” Her wide grin undercut her words, and Vax found himself starting to smile back.

“Besides,” she continued, gripping at his shirt in a way that bordered on petulant. “I died yesterday. I deserve to have at least one day where you do whatever I want.”

Vax’s burgeoning smile faded. “Please, don’t talk about it like that.”

“I’m the one who died, I’ll talk about it in whatever way I need to,” she replied, her voice blunt, but quiet.

Really, he couldn’t argue, no matter how much it hurt to hear his sister refer to her death so flippantly.

The sound of furniture being dragged across the floor drew his attention, and he looked up to see Vex positioning a chair across from him, poking his shin with her foot as she sat down. “Come on. Lay it on me. Tell me all about your desperate, undying love for Keyleth.”

“Gee, you make this little talk sound so appealing.”

She giggled. “Okay, I’m sorry, I’ll be serious. Come on. What happened?”

“Well,” he started, trying to think of where to start. It felt so strange, talking to her about this. “I… I love her.”

“ _I know_ ,” his sister responded, her voice flat an unimpressed.

“And she… she loves me. Or at least she thinks she does.”

“Isn’t that good?” she asked with a confused smile. “Or… oh. Did you two? You know…” she made some strange gesture then, waving her hands around each other awkwardly. “Was it bad?”

It took Vax several moments of staring at the uncomfortable expression on her face to figure out what she was trying to say. “What? No! What the… no! I am not talking about _that_  with you!” He pushed himself back on the bed, putting more space between them. “I thought you wanted to help!”

“I’m trying!” Vex responded, throwing her arms up in the air in exasperation. “It’s like pulling teeth!”

He sighed, moving forward to lean his elbow on his knees, offering her an apologetic tap to her foot with his toe. “No, we haven’t done…  _that_.”

“Then  _what happened_?”

It felt strange to look at her while he said this, and a part of him felt a bit wrong, sharing a piece of the strange, fractured world he had with Keyleth with anyone else, so he stared at his hands while he spoke. “I went to her last night. I was hoping…” he trailed off, not wanting to have to explain the whole thing, not wanting to tell her about the night he and Keyleth had spent together back at the Keep, not wanting to share that piece of their world that meant so much to him.

“What were you hoping?” Vex finally prompted.

“I just wanted to be close to her. After everything that happened, I just needed... I wasn’t expecting or asking for anything more than that. I just wanted to be close to her.”

“I don’t understand. Did that upset her?”

“No, it’s just… we started talking…” Vax chose to skip over the part where Keyleth had tried the restoration spell, how they had been interrupted by that raven. Vex wanted to hear about him and Keyleth. She didn’t need to hear those other details. “And I told her I love her. I just… I hadn’t said it since Whitestone, in Anders’ study, and I wanted so badly to say it…”

“And?”

Frustrated, feeling more awkward than he ever had before, even more than when he had talked to Keyleth at the Sun Tree, he ran his hands through his hair, grasping at the strands and pulling as he continued. “She said that she thinks she loves me too, but,” he was desperately trying to keep the shaking out of his voice, and knew that he wasn’t succeeding, “she’s too scared to let herself love me because she’s too scared of losing me.”

“Everyone feels that,” Vex said, almost dismissively. “It’s not surprising she’d say that after what happened. Give her a few days.”

“No,” he said, his voice tired. “It’s more than that. If she finishes her Aramente and becomes headmaster, she’ll end up outliving all of us. By quite a bit, apparently.”

“Oh,” his sister replied in a quiet voice, almost as though she was talking to herself. “I didn’t know that.”

“Neither did I.”

They both sat with this information for a while, trying to grasp exactly what it meant.

“So what did you do then? After she told you that?” she finally asked.

Vax sighed, ashamed. “I left.”

“You  _left_?”

He could only nod in response.

It was Vex’s turn to sigh now, a long suffering breath leaving her. “Vax…”

“I had just held your dead body in my arms and bargained for your life! I needed her and she told me she doesn’t want to be with me! I was just supposed to stay there and take it?” he shouted, immediately going on the defensive, despite the fact that a rather large part of himself agreed with his sister’s disappointed tone.

Vex moved from the chair to the bed, sitting close to him and taking his hand. “Did she _say_  she doesn’t want to be with you?”

With a frustrated groan, he started, “she said-“

“She said she was scared,” she interrupted him gently. “Right?”

He nodded.

“She said she was scared to let herself love you because she was scared of how much losing you would hurt. Yes?”

He nodded again.

“Anywhere in there did she actually  _say_  that she doesn’t want to be with you?”

Trying to call to mind the words from the night before, the exact words that had felt like a dagger piercing his heart, he realized… “No.”

“Of course she’s scared. I died, and you tried to offer your life in exchange.” At her words, he looked at her, unable to mask his surprise. “Oh please, you might be unwilling to tell me things, but there are other people in this party.”

“Vex-“

“Stop. We don’t… we’re doing  _this_  now. That… we’ll deal with that some other time.”

Squeezing her hand, he nodded, letting her know to continue.

“How many times have you almost died, Vax? Because you ran off on your own and did something stupid?” He was about to protest until she said, “You know it’s true. The first time you told her you love her she had just watched you almost die. Of course that’s something that’s been weighing on her mind. And yesterday she was faced with it in a way she never has been before. We all were.” Her voice faded out at the end of her sentence, and Vax could hear her take in a deep breath to steady herself. “She  _wants_  to be with you. Do you really think she would have told you she loves you otherwise?”

“She’s right though,” Vax said, too tired to fight against his sister’s offer of help and comfort any longer. “That amount of pain… how can I put her through that? How can I be with her knowing how much I’ll eventually hurt her?”

“Stop that,” she said firmly. “Do think that other people in love just live forever? No. That’s not the way it works. It doesn’t matter who you are, you’re going to lose someone you love. Probably lots of people you love. That’s a part of life. We  _all_  lose people. You know that. We both do.”

He felt her squeezing his hand, and he squeezed back, as they offered each other comfort for the reminder of what they had lost.

“I’m not going to pretend that I understand what Keyleth’s future means for her. But I do know that right now she’s scared. I know. I talked to her. I know how scared she is. But she loves you. Don’t give up on her.”

“I… I told her I would understand. I told her if she didn’t want me that I’d understand. How can I-“

“But she  _does_  want you,” Vex interrupted. “If I really thought she didn’t, I wouldn’t be telling you not to give up. She loves you. You love her. She’s just scared. But she doesn’t want you to give up on her. She wants you to reassure her.”

“Of what? That it won’t hurt when she loses me?”

“No. That it will be worth it.”

Vex squeezed his hand one last time.

“And maybe that you’ll stop running off like an idiot and almost getting yourself killed all the time.”

* * *

 

As soon as the door to Keyleth’s room opened, Vax was on his feet.

“Hey,” he said, hanging back against the wall opposite her door, where he had been sitting while he waited for her to wake up.

“Hi,” she said, surprised.

“How are you feeling?” Vax asked, knowing he sounded incredibly awkward, but trying to work up the nerve to say what needed to be said.

“Fine. Rested and ready to open a portal,” Keyleth responded, and he could immediately see how guarded she was.

“I’m sorry. For just walking out on you the other night.”

“Vax-“

“No, you were telling me something important and I just left. I shouldn’t have done that.”

She looked down at her feet. “I shouldn’t have dropped that on you, with everything…”

They stood there in the hallway, Keyleth staring at her feet and Vax staring at her, desperately wanting to be able to look into her eyes. Finally, he worked up the nerve to step toward her, taking her hand. “Can we talk? Please?”

“We really need to get going,” she said, still not looking at him.

“Please?” he implored once again. “I really don’t want to go off into another fight without saying this to you.”

Nodding, but still not looking at him, she pulled her hand out of his and turned around, opening the door to her room. He followed her in, closing the door behind him. “I really am sorry. For walking out,” he said as she turned to look at him.

“I understand. I can’t imagine it was what you wanted to hear.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Vax chuckled humorlessly. He took a deep breath, unsure of how to start. “At the Sun Tree, I told you that if you didn’t want me, I would understand. And I still mean that. So if that’s really what you want… I don’t want to pressure you. I’ll walk away. I just…”

“It’s not that I don’t want you, Vax-“ she started.

“I know. That’s… that’s why I think I feel okay doing this,” he said. Once again he stepped toward her, this time taking both hands in his own, feeling encouraged when she didn’t resist. “I understand why you’re scared. I didn’t know before, what you finishing your Aramente would mean. And while I might not be able to understand the totality of it, I get why it would be scary enough for you to… say what you did. But, I just want you to think about something. Okay?”

At his words, she looked up, meeting his eyes for the first time. “Okay,” she responded, uncertain.

“We all lose people. I know it would be different, losing someone and then having to live without them for so long. But that pain… it’s something we all have to experience. Whether we only live one more day or another million years. And yeah, I can speak from experience when I saw that when you have to go on for a long time after that loss, the pain never goes away.”

“Vax,” Keyleth said, her voice little more than a whisper. What had happened to his mother, what he felt because of it, it wasn’t something that he  _or_  Vex had ever really shared with anyone else, nor was it something they openly talked about. He knew that she was stunned that he had just done so. It was strange, sharing that part of his life with someone other than Vex, but he knew how important this all was. He knew he needed to trust her.

“Did you mean it? When you said that you think you love me?” He couldn’t look at her when he said it, too frightened that he’d be able to see an answer he didn’t want in her eyes.

“I did,” she said, her voice still quiet. “No, wait, I mean…” Vax closed his eyes and braced himself as he felt her take her hand from his. After a long moment, he felt her finger tips against his jaw. “I don’t think. I know.”

Vax opened his eyes, ready to smile at her, until he saw her eyes: wide, sad, and filled with tears. Reaching up to wipe away a tear that was running down her cheek, he asked, “Isn’t that a good thing?”

“No. It makes this all so much worse.”

“Why?”

“You know why,” she said, beginning to cry in earnest. “Don’t make me say it again.”

“You love me,” he said to her, still almost unable to believe that the words were true. “Do you really think it would hurt less to lose me just because we weren’t together?”

“I don’t know,” she whispered.

“We’re not together right now,” Vax said, trying to keep his voice strong. “And I know for a fact that if I were to lose you this second there’s no way that it could possibly hurt more than it already would.”

Keyleth let out a quiet sob, moving forward to bury her face in his neck.

“I can’t promise that it won’t hurt. I don’t know if it’s going to happen tomorrow or a century from now, but I do know that it will hurt. There’s no way around that.”

They were silent for a long while, standing there in her room, with Keyleth wrapped in his arms. Despite the circumstances, he breathed her in, letting himself fall into the feeling of her pressed to him, committing it to memory.

“I love you,” Vax whispered, breaking the silence. “I will always love you. I will always be here for you, and I will wait for you as long as you need. And if you do decide that you don’t want…” he trailed off, trying to fight back against the lump in his throat. “I understand. I just don’t want you to condemn yourself to a life where you don’t let anybody in because you think it will hurt less when I know for a fact that it won’t.”

“I’m scared,” she said.

“I know. And I know there are a lot of things that I wish I could promise you that I can’t. But there is one thing I can promise you.”

He pulled her back slightly so that he could look into her eyes. He didn’t think he’d ever seen her look so unsure and scared. Not in any fight, not in any battle. Her hands grasped at the front of his cloak, curling into fists, crushing the fabric, and she remained close to him, not putting any more space between them than he already had.

“I can only promise you that I will make it worth it. I promise to fill every single day we have together with so much love, and so much happiness.”

She let out a bitter chuckle. “And then it will hurt so much worse.”

“I don’t think it will,” Vax countered. “I think it would hurt worse knowing that you could have spent our time together being happy and in love. I think that adding regret to the pain is the thing that would make it worse.” Bringing the other hand up to frame her face, he looked into her eyes. “I know you’re scared. But I also know that if there’s one thing you’re  _not_ , it’s a coward.”

“I feel like one sometimes.”

“You’re  _not_.”

“I might need reminding sometimes.”

“A service I would be more than happy to provide.”

Her hands continued to grasp his cloak, and he could feel her fists tightening against his chest. “I’m still scared. I might always be scared.”

“I know.”

“But…” Keyleth smiled softly then, the lightness of it brightening her sad face, and unclenched her hands, bringing them up to his face. “ _I love you_.”

A relieved laugh burst out of Vax. “I love you.”

Moving her arms around his neck, she leaned in, closing the space between them and kissing him. Her lips were sure as they pressed against his, and his response carried the same certainty. He slid a hand back into her hair, tilting her head to deepen the kiss, pouring everything he felt, all of his love, all of his _relief_ into their embrace. His other arm moved around her waist as she sighed into his mouth, and he pulled her further into him, as close as he could, and held her to his body, spinning her around to push her against the door.

They separated, gasping for breath. Vax leaned in to her, ready to press his lips to her jaw. Their movements in sync, she tilted her head to the side to give his lips room to roam, when there was a knock at the door.

“Keyleth, are you awake yet?” Percy’s voice interrupted them. “It will be dark soon. We should go.”

Vax dropped his forehead to her shoulder as she drew herself close to him again, not ready to let go. “I’d almost forgotten…”

Pulling back to look at Keyleth, he noticed how apprehensive her expression had become. “Hey. It’s going to be okay, he reassured her, bringing the hand he had tangled in her hair around to cup her cheek in comfort.

“Keyleth?” came Percy’s voice again through the door.

“I’ll be out in a second,” she called back. Looking at Vax, she leaned her forehead against his, closing her eyes and taking in a deep, calming breath. “It’s going to be okay,” she repeated.

She took a few more breaths, and Vax held on to that moment, standing there, holding her close, knowing that she loved him, and that he loved her. If something horrible happened and this was the last moment they had together, at least it would be a good one.

Her eyes drifted open and she smiled at him, her thumbs stroking his neck just beneath his ears. “I love you,” she said again.

Vax was certain he would never tire of the way those words made him feel.

“And I love you,” he said, pressing one last, quick kiss to her lips before pulling away from her. “Let’s go find your people.”

Her hand squeezed his as they moved away from the door and opened it, to find a very surprised Percy on the other side.

“Oh, um-“ Percy stammered, his cheeks growing pink. “Vax, I didn’t know that you were- I didn’t mean to interrupt.” He backed up a few steps as the pair stepped out of the room, eyeing Vax warily, as though he was still worried he might get punched in the mouth.

“It’s fine, Percival,” he responded cheerily, letting go of Keyleth’s hand as he gave his friend a good-natured, if slightly harder-than-necessary, slap on the back, too happy in the moment to hold on to his anger.

“Be nice,” Keyleth whispered, blushing a bright red as she quickly tried to smooth down her hair, now mussed from where Vax had tangled his hand into it. “Is everyone ready to go?” she asked Percy, her voice high and awkward.

“Yes,” Percy responded slowly, looking between the two before simply turning around and walking back down the hallway.  

Vax started to follow, but Keyleth grabbed his hand, pulling him back. Her teeth bit into her lower lip and her eyebrows furrowed in worry. “Do you think you can promise me one other thing?”

“If I can.”

“Can you promise me that you won’t run off by yourself? Can you promise not to do stupid, impulsive things that could get you killed?” Her hand squeezed his so tightly he could feel the bones in his fingers crushing together. “I know you can’t promise that something won’t happen or that you won’t get hurt. But can you at least promise me that?”

He knew it would be difficult. His instincts had always guided him, and logic and forethought were usually secondary, if even that. It had been his way of life for as long as he could remember. A part of him wasn’t sure he could change.

But then he looked into Keyleth’s eyes, seeing the concern, and the fear that moved behind it. He also saw the emotion that brought that concern and that fear out: love.

And he knew.

“I promise,” he said, bringing her hand up to his lips, placing a lingering kiss to her knuckles.

Her shoulders relaxed as she smiled at him again. “Thank you.”

“What the hell is taking so long?” Grog’s loud, impatient voice rang out, breaking the moment between them.

“Okay,” Keyleth said, taking a deep breath. “Let’s go.”

He nodded, squeezing her hand one last time before releasing it, and she walked ahead of him, straightening her posture and lifting her chin, looking every inch like the princess she was.

And fuck, he loved her.

A few minutes later, as they gathered around the tree, preparing to leave, Vax pretended not to notice Percy whispering to his sister, or the somewhat smug and entirely-too-pleased-with-herself smile that Vex was sending his way. Instead, he focused on the woman he loved, as she opened the portal to Pyrah, and on making every single moment they had together worth it.


End file.
